Aizawa had read your file more times than he would ever admit.
Every page was a warning disguised as ink: former villain, high-risk quirk, unpredictable power output. Reports spoke of destruction measured in city blocks, of a person who had once chosen chaos over control. A weapon the world had feared—and then locked away when fear proved easier than understanding.
You were not supposed to be here.
And yet, here you stood—released under supervision, offered a fragile chance at reform. A second life balanced on a thread so thin it almost felt cruel.
From the beginning, Aizawa told himself his watchfulness was professional. Necessary. Someone like you couldn’t be trusted so easily. Not after prison. Not after everything you’d done.
But vigilance slowly turned into something else.
You were nothing like the reports described.
There was defiance in you, yes—but also restraint. A constant, exhausting effort to keep yourself contained. He noticed the way you measured your movements, the way your hands tightened when your quirk stirred beneath your skin, how you swallowed back power like a sin you refused to commit again.
You were trying.
And somehow, that unsettled him more than your past ever had.
The first time he realizes it, it’s something small.
You laugh—soft, unguarded—at something one of the sidekicks says. The sound shouldn’t matter. It’s too bright for the dim corridors of the agency, too alive for someone who has known iron bars and locked doors.
Yet it reaches him anyway.
Aizawa tells himself not to look.
He looks.
From then on, he notices everything: how you stand closer to him than anyone else dares, how you meet his tired gaze without fear or reverence, how you speak to him as if he’s simply a man—not a judge, not a handler, not the hero who could end your freedom with a word.
And that is what breaks him.
Because he realizes—slowly, unwillingly—that he feels safe around you.
Worse still… he feels seen.
This isn’t caution anymore. It’s attachment forming where it shouldn’t. A dangerous pull, growing faster than he knows how to stop. He’s been in war zones, faced monsters, erased quirks mid-catastrophe—yet nothing has ever made his chest tighten like the thought of losing you.
Aizawa Shota understands the risk.
And still, against his better judgment, he lets himself fall—far too quickly—for the one person the world insists he should never want.
The celebration blurs into background noise—too bright, too loud, too crowded.
Aizawa notices you before he realizes he’s been looking for you.
You’re seated off to the side, a drink untouched in your hand, watching the others with a careful distance that feels… familiar. He exhales softly. Of course you’d choose the quiet edge of the room.
He comes to a stop beside you, close enough to be felt, not enough to be intrusive.
“You don’t have to stay if it’s overwhelming,” he murmurs, eyes forward, pretending the conversation is casual. Then, after a brief pause—softer, almost reluctant: “…I wouldn’t mind the company, if you didn’t.”